Till Death Do Us Part
by headupintheclouds
Summary: The mystery: The love life of a certain late Headmaster. The tragedy: A horrible sock incident.The result: A slightly humerous fic that is one possibility for the cause of a certain Headmster's quirks.Please R&R.


Till Death Do Us Part 

By headupintheclouds

_White,_ he recalled fondly. Gleaming up at him from a shining marble coffin. White had been her favorite color_. Crisp and welcoming, like she had been._

Streams of auburn hair cascaded down his front. His eyes held a squinting look belonging to a man that needed glasses.

A fairy tale love, it had seemed. Until that horrid sock incident. Socks. Socks had destroyed years of memories-in-the-making. Socks had broken vows. Socks had separated them, shielded them from each other through the thin veil of life. Weak bits of fluff that covered his feet at this very moment.

The solidity of the coffin almost surprised him. Even now, he held out hope that perhaps the coffin was merely an illusion, intangible and figmentary.

"We're closing now," came a gruff Scottish voice behind him.

The next day, the funeral ensued. Slowly, she was lowered into the ground, albeit entrapped in a stone bed with no chance of escape. _Like being buried alive_, he thought dryly. _Like being alive, except being dead_. She'd never really be dead to him. Such spirits live on.

He oversaw the placement of her tombstone, engraved with a somber:

Amelia Raine Havertgroff-Dumbledore 

**1846-1871**

"Nitwit Oddment Blubber Tweak" 

Her last words. Chocked with pain and emotion. She'd looked him in the eyes. A secret code they'd had as school-agers. _Children,_ he thought. _Merely starting out_. She still had been. Death had stolen so much from her.

If only he could remember the code. He had recognized the words immediately, but his 20-something memory was already failing him.

These days he would walk down the streets, with no hand to hold. He would go into the Muggle towns, but even these failed to entertain him anymore. He'd resolved to busy himself in concocting new spells, new potions, new everything. He'd holed away, busying himself with these things. As grey hairs took root, so did his prestige.

His fame grew and grew, and one day nearly forty years after her death, he was still holed up in the little shack they'd bought together, trying to bring life from death. It was his real intention. He wouldn't admit it, even to himself, but it was true. Sporadically, he would mentally flail out for a solution, and all his discoveries were really lucky failures.

He was summoned out of his home numerous times, but he missed the awarding of every prize he'd won, and he was almost legendary. School children spoke of a rickety old man, who'd shut himself up in a kind of insanity, and was now curing the world bit by bit.

One day, he was called upon by an old friend, Horace Slughorn.

"You've been selected," Slughorn had said fondly.

"Selected for what?" Albus had asked, humoring an old friend, while combining bobotuber puss with Inky Snapper venom blindly.

"New headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Slughorn informed, clearly expecting some sort of reaction.

"Wonderful. Tell them I can't do it," Dumbledore replied, now mixing a greenish metallic substance in. A silent explosion occurred, and Dumbledore turned to finally face Slughorn, his face now covered in soot and sparkles.

"BUT-" Slughorn sputtered indignantly.

"No," said Dumbledore stiffly.

"You must! You can't continue 'living' like this- walling yourself up and wallowing. It isn't- it's not-" Slughorn searched for words.

"It's not 'normal'? Not 'ordinary'? Not '_healthy_'?" Dumbledore supplied blandly.

"Well- Slughorn started. "You've so much potential!"

"Am I not using this potential _now_? Am I not furthering the magical world _now_? Are not you interrupting my work as we speak?" Dumbledore hurried him, growing impatient.

"I won't leave," Slughorn said stubbornly, crossing his arms.

Dumbledore cocked an eyebrow at him. "Fine," he conceded, turning back around to face his vials and containers, some of which were bubbling ferociously, with no apparent source of heat or disturbance.

"And I won't stop talking! I'll bother you until you agree top take the job. You need it, and no one else could do the job as well as you." Slughorn pushed.

"How childish," Dumbledore mused.

"I'm not kidding. I'll say it over and over again: Will you take the job?" Slughorn said.

"Go right ahead," Dumbledore allowed.

"Will you take the job?" Slughorn started.

"No." Dumbledore said.

"Will you take the job?" Slughorn prodded.

"I don't want it," Dumbledore sighed.

"Will you take the job?"

"No."

"Will you take the job?"

"No."

"Will you take the job?"

"No."

"Will you take the job?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Will you take the job?"

"NO."

"Will you take the job?"

Several long days of this later, a physically drawn Albus Dumbledore agreed to take on the position of Headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

A/N: A short, snappy, silly oneshot. Hope you all enjoyed it, and I hope no one was too discontent with my absence. Life, you know. I've become very intrigued with Dumbly's love life, because every person needs one. Even me. –sigh- don't ask.


End file.
